A tale of two droughts

The telephone rang at 6:30 a.m. It was my wife. Her first sentence: "We had 24-hundredths of an inch of rain last night." I relished every word as if they were drops slowly soaking into parched earth.

For the previous two days I had been moving our cattle to another paddock where there might just be enough grass to graze for one more week. The temperature had been 106 degrees yesterday, and 106 the day before. The water jug was never far out of sight, and breaks in the shade came often.

There have been almost 30 days over 100 degrees in southern Kansas since early June and the forecast for the next week showed little change until a "cool" front might drop the mercury to a breezy 97.

The extreme drought has taken its toll on the region's agriculture. Much of the rain-fed corn from the southern and western third of the state has been abandoned, baled, or chopped for feed. There has been almost no alfalfa production; the winter wheat crop yields in June were well below average. Many ranchers have been early weaning spring calves, as well as culling cows. Farther south in Oklahoma and Texas where the drought has been even more severe, whole herds have been sold.

And yet in the midst of the most severe drought since the late 19th century, one doesn't see mass migrations that characterized the 1880s and the Dust Bowl of the 1930s.

Why? Since the Depression there has been long-term government investment in programs that ensure agricultural resiliency through resource conservation and insurance. Like most farmers who suffered crop losses in June, my crop insurance helped compensate for the lost income. Moreover land grant research and extension services have helped spread better farming practices, which have prevented some of the worst consequences of drought.

In short, the U.S. agriculture system is prepared to manage extreme situations, allowing us to avoid the type of mass migrations that destabilize governments and lead to famines elsewhere in the world.

This is not the case in eastern Africa, where another historic drought is taking place. Thousands of Somalis have crossed into refugee camps in Kenya -- a country that is also suffering from lack of rainfall. Officially declared a famine by the United Nations, at least 12 million people are at risk and many are dying each day from hunger. Because of the drought and failed infrastructure, more than 135,000 people have fled Somalia into neighboring countries, creating new stresses for governments and exacerbating conflicts.

We know there must be an immediate response. The United Nations estimates that $2.1 billion is needed to stave off a major humanitarian catastrophe. However, in places where chronic drought or other climate extremes are impacting food security, there must be longer range investments to build local capacity and economic opportunity to prevent future crises.

Even with natural disaster and extreme weather, catastrophic hunger is not inevitable and it need not be permanent. These are preventable crises. People are hungry because governments are failing to prepare for the inexorable extremes.

Most of those displaced by drought rely on agriculture and food production to earn a living. But official development assistance for agriculture dropped 75 percent during the last 3 decades. Faltering public investments in developing country agriculture is undoubtedly an underlying cause of the current crisis and has undermined long term food security in many poor countries.

In the last two years, the United States has made commitments on the global stage for investments that would help developing nations build resilience to these extremes and improve food security and self-reliance through small holder agriculture. These commitments would be less than what we now pay in wasteful farm subsidies and tax breaks for oil refiners to blend ethanol -- spending that contributes little or nothing to U.S. agricultural resiliency.

And yet fiscally responsible investments in developing nation agriculture will create powerful savings in the level of food aid that is needed and will help prevent the mounting national security costs that humanitarian crises create.

Whether in the United States, Africa, or in any agricultural region, farmers always face uncertainty. The future will hold even greater risks as climate change increases, markets become more volatile, and resources become scarcer. Planning for that future by investing in cost-saving resiliency will mean a more secure world where hope for rain is not a matter of life or death.

Jim French is a farmer from Partridge, Kan. He works on agriculture policy for Oxfam America.